THE VOICES OF FLOWERS. 13 



and to cheer and instruct many a heavy-hearted wanderer 

 through the wilderness of earth. And busy little missionaries 

 of light and beauty have they been. What spot of earth have 

 they not struggled to cover with their verdure and their smiles ? 

 Along the borders of the Sahara, where restless waves of sand 

 and the heated winds of the simoon prevent all animal life, 

 are found broad and deep coast-lines of verdure, and flowers and 

 plants and the graceful palm stand eagerly vying with each other 

 to dispute every inch of soil with the howling storms of the 

 desert ; and occasionally a seed, taking advantage of the gale, 

 leaps from its parent stem, and, riding upon the storm, is 

 carried for miles to some little island-home in the sand, where, 

 taking root, it soon achieves a victory, and beautiful ver 

 dure springs up to hide the former barrenness. Others have 

 found their way into regions of perpetual ice; and Captain 

 Richardson speaks of plants and small flowers which bloomed 

 so near to the Polar regions that gloomy piles of ice lay on 

 the ground as their companions during the entire year. 

 Some, with a remarkable fitness to all the peculiarities 

 of the countries whither they wander, have been found in 

 Iceland, running their delicate roots into the hot waters of 

 the boiling springs, and thence drawing nourishment which 

 permits them to continue from year to year putting forth 

 blossoms and bearing seed in continuance of a life so wel 

 come and so singular. Farther south, and near to Naples, is the 

 Grotto del Cane,* out of which issues a pestiferous breath 



* Called thus the &quot; cave of the dog&quot; because of the fact that a dog on entering sank 

 down helpless, and thus led to the discovery of the deadly air which settles near the ground. 



